'This can't be happening': Rush on article

Geoffrey Rush has told a court he felt sick to the stomach and as though his head was filled with lead when he saw a Sydney newspaper's front page about an allegation he'd behaved inappropriately toward a co-star.

The Daily Telegraph front page showed an old promotional image of Rush from a Sydney Theatre Company production of King Lear with the headline "King Leer" across his bare chest.

The Oscar-winning actor on Monday said it was devastating when he saw the front page and article on the morning of November 30, 2017 while his wife and adult son were home.

"I could see how distressed they were which created a great deal of hurt for me," Rush, now 67, told Sydney's Federal Court.

"I felt as though someone had poured lead into my head. I went into a kind of 'This can't be happening'."

Rush is suing the Telegraph's publisher Nationwide News and journalist Jonathon Moran for defamation over articles about an allegation he behaved inappropriately toward a co-star - later revealed to be Eryn Jean Norvill - during the STC's production of King Lear in 2015 and 2016.

Rush denies the allegation.

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He said when the paper ran its second article, which said two STC actors had spoken in support of his accuser, he felt "distraught by the way the story was running off the rails and didn't seem to reflect anything I experienced".

"My blood ran cold and I went to jelly as I thought this is the beginning of a box set, this story is going to continue and it's wilder than you think, dear reader," Rush said.

The Australian had already asked him about the allegation before Moran but when he called STC executive director Patrick McIntyre for more information he was told the complainant had requested anonymity and didn't want him to know about it, the court heard.

Rush said that after the first story broke, he was outraged to think that Mr McIntyre could have told the Telegraph and the rest of the world what he wouldn't tell him.

His lawyer Bruce McClintock SC in his opening address said the actor was a "national living treasure" with no scandal to his name before the two articles and a poster destroyed his reputation.

Nationwide News and Moran are pleading a defence of truth in the trial and Norvill - who didn't speak with Moran for the articles - has agreed to give evidence.

According to a defence document, Rush allegedly made lewd gestures in her direction, simulated fondling and groping her breasts and regularly made comments or jokes about her involving sexual innuendo.

He is accused of touching Norvill's lower back under her shirt when they were backstage and tracing his hand down her torso and across the side of her breast during a scene in which he was carrying her.

Rush knew he was doing it without her consent and that she couldn't do anything when in front of an audience to prevent it, the defence claims.

Mr McClintock on Monday said Rush would testify he didn't do any of the alleged acts.

The actor said the articles didn't relate to the "very strenuous but very cheerful" experience he had working on the play, and that as far as he was concerned, he and Norvill had enjoyed a "very sparky, congenial rapport".